


it's in the coffee

by infinateuniverse



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x18, Falling In Love, Family, Life - Freeform, Other, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:49:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27462982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinateuniverse/pseuds/infinateuniverse
Summary: this love he has for this man
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	it's in the coffee

It’s coffee in the morning, a cup handed to the other with a smile and teasing smirk of, “Morning, Sunshine.” Castiel has come to learn that this particular phrase means something pleasant, something kind. A term of endearment to a loved one. It settles something within his chest, a loving feeling spreading throughout his body. He takes the coffee and he sits down next to Dean, Sam across from him, and he drinks it. A smile on his face, hidden by the rim of his cup as Sam talks about the next monster hunt. He tries to hide the grin, but Sam’s knowing eyes always find his, just as Dean’s blissfully unware one’s, don’t.

“Come on, Cas, we’ve got to get the move on this.”

Castiel gulps down every drop, and he’s warm as they stand shoulder to shoulder, a weapon in each hand. A vampire at their feet. A grin on Dean’s lips that matches his own in a way. They drive back under rain, and Sam is asleep stretched out in the backseat. Him in the front next to Dean. Dean who smiles at him and says, “How about some tunes?”

They listen to Led Zeppelin the whole way back, quietly though, a small hum under the thunder and lightning. They don’t want to wake Sam.

-

It’s in the cold snow in the air as Dean walks up beside him, an extra jacket in hand that he gives him. A gruff, “morning,” this time on his lips. But he doesn’t need to say anything about sunshine because all the sun is right here in front of him. It’s in the gesture of a jacket handed over. A furry thing that’s need in Minnesota for humans. He’s not human, but he doesn’t disagree, he was starting to feel some goosebumps emerge anyway. They’ve disappeared now, Dean’s shoulder pressed into his, that small comfort he never tires of. He puts the jacket on regardless. He doesn’t zip it up, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“Come on, Cas, it’s been what? Four years on Earth.” Dean has his hands on the zipper, pulling it up for him, a look of determination on his face, then with that same teasing grin that he’s always worn, only now a little more tired, a little more worn, he flips the hood over his head. A burst of laughter spilling out as Castiel looks up through the fur lined hood. He tries to glare, feeling that human impulse to do so, but honestly he doesn’t understand. He just likes the way Dean’s body moves under laughter, under happiness rather than sorrow.

“Hey, we have a lead!” Sam sticks his head out of the lodge as he says it, then a furrow of his eyebrows, a down turn of his lips as Dean, still with that smile on his lips, points at him. Sam just shakes his head. “Dean, come on.” It’s mild irritation, annoyance only a brother can give the other, but Dean is still smiling as Castiel takes the hood off and meets his eyes.

“I don’t understand.” He says honestly. “What’s so funny?”

Dean’s laughter stops a little, a look of something in his eyes Castiel can’t quite place before his hand is on his shoulder. Before he guides him back inside. “Ah, never mind.” He slips in-between the crunch of snow under their feet.

Castiel doesn’t really understand, but he’s warm in a jacket that’s not his own device. It somehow feels like enough to not understand sometimes.

-

It’s in the determination on Dean’s face, the endless sleepless nights. The care for the other, blankets slipped over in the early morning hours where only minutes have gone by of actual slumber. The hand on his shoulder and the coffee breath that makes his nose scrunch up. The bravado Dean displays even though he feels like they’re hitting dead end over dead end. The heavy set line of his shoulders as he says to Castiel, eyes tired as he rubs at them, rubs it away, “We should eat.”

Sam is asleep, his head resting pillowed on his folded arms. Castiel’s eyes go to him, but Dean is already grabbing his keys and jacket. “Let him sleep, he needs it.” He says simply, then because he’s already at the door and Castiel hasn’t followed him, “You coming?”

They creep out of the old log cabin, the leaves crunching under their feet as they head to the Impala. Castiel goes to sit in the passenger seat, but Dean stops, his feet stilling as he stares at his keys thoughtfully. “You don’t sleep, right?” He asks it as though he wants a response, needs one. He already knows though.

“No.” Castiel’s eyes scrunch up, confusion entering his stomach. An excitement peeking up for a reason or reasons he can’t explain. The keys are thrown to him and they land at his feet. Dean rolls his eyes again.

“Come on, man, you’re supposed to catch them.”

Castiel picks them up and stares at them thoughtfully. He looks to Dean who’s not quite smiling, but not quite doing anything else either. “You drive.” He says. “I’m too tired.” It’s a lame excuse. Castiel has seen him drive a million times with weeks of lost sleep, but this time he lies. He’s always lying, but rarely to him. He feels a pinch in his chest for it that he doesn’t really understand, but also a thrum of nervous energy as he plays with the keys in his hands. ‘ _The most important object in the universe._ ’ He thinks, but does not say.

“Are we going or not?” Dean’s sitting in the passenger seat, he’s waiting. Castiel has no choice but to get in, a quick, “I don’t know what I’m doing,” on his lips as he does so.

“Come on, it’s not that hard.”

He learns how to drive then, a smile of exhilaration on his lips, the windows rolled down. Autumn air flying through his hair. Dean with a bubble of laughter on his own lips that never comes up, but the smile is glorious. The car is beautiful. He is beautiful.

“Dean-” He wants to say something, a feeling like euphoria rising within him, in his chest. A feeling of something he’s never felt before. Never known. Never understood. But before he can, Dean is hitting him on the shoulder.

“Pull over.” He pulls over, and there is another cabin, two men with sun in their eyes that makes them wince, teeth filled with blood.

Dean pulls out his machete, eyes on Castiel as he asks rushed and hurried, “Are you ready?”

Castiel stares at his hazel eyes. The excitement in his tone. The set of his shoulders ready to pounce, ready to kill. He smiles too. “I’m ready, Dean.”

His returning smile is breathtaking.

They kill. They hurt. They end.

Side by side, and it feels little like purgatory, and a lot like _them._

-

It’s in his shaking hands that are smeared with blood. The lost eyes that see nothing and everything. Castiel cups his own overtop, but Dean pulls away like they both knew he would. The mark glows in the low light of the bunker, the blade not too far away. A sadness, a sorrow throughout all time covered in bloodlust. A hitch in his breath, a feral need that can’t go unmet.

“I’m going to kill, an- and I- I can’t, Cas, I can’t.” His voice breaks, his eyes breaking Castiel. He puts a hand on his shoulder, and Dean lets him.

“Kill me. Send me to Mars, do whatever you have to, just don’t let me k- hurt anyone anymore. Cas, please.”

He doesn’t care for himself, only others. Only Sam. Only the whole world. It makes Castiel care for him more.

“Don’t worry, Dean, we’ll figure this out.”

“Guys, I’ve got something!” Sam yells, and it feels like too much too soon. His hand burns as Dean stands up, his fingers curling into themselves as the heat from his shoulder is lost. He takes a moment to think of what he’s lost, and then he walks over with Dean. Determination in the set of his own shoulders now.

“What is it?” He asks.

-

It’s in the honey that he catches in the mornings, his mind off kilter. His heart unsteady. He doesn’t know where he stands, or who he is anymore, but the bees are beautiful in the morning light. They buzz and hum from flower to flower. Their beehives filled with delicious sweet honey. He catches it all, for Dean. He kills a pig even though it hurts, somewhere deeply nestled in a place where a soul might be. He bakes bread, kneading the dough with the thought of Dean, of Sam.

It hurts when Dean doesn’t take the honey, the sweetness something Castiel knows he’ll love. He likes to eat all the Halloween candy anyway, this is just more natural. More real. But he doesn’t take it, and it hurts, but Castiel somehow knew that he wouldn’t. Knows that he’ll never take the honey, so he shouldn’t go right? He shouldn’t go to Dick’s to die. It’s over for him. Dean didn’t take the honey.

But it’s a lie.

He lies too now it seems.

“I’ll go with you.” He says, but what he means is, ‘I’ll die for you.’ Because he would. He will. Over and over. For him, for Sam. For _him._ The first human that ever mattered.

Whether he takes the honey or not, he’ll go.

“Sorry, but I’d rather have you, cursed or not.”

And it’s enough, somehow. It’s more than he deserves.

Dying to rectify his guilt, to have Dean forgive him. It’s enough.

The honey though, well that stuff will last forever, won’t it?

-

It’s in the beer they share after a long day of hunting none of other than their God above. His father. It feels a little surreal at times, to think of him as such. A father, but that’s what he is, and despite Dean’s own father’s flaws, he never turned evil. He never gave up the good parts of life. Never tried to destroy his own creation- his own son, except in a way he did. It leaves a hollowness in his chest. Something that just won’t click into place. A pinging that’s endless, like a rock thrown over an ocean that will never end, skipping along until the end of time.

Dean clinks their glasses together and smiles wryly. “To saving the world… From God.” He chuckles into his beer, and Castiel can’t help but smile, fond and terrible.

“Where’s Sam?” He asks instead of saying something stupid again, like, ‘we’re what’s real.’

“Out with Eileen.” Dean chuckles, happy now as he thinks of his brother’s happiness. So easy it is, to make him happy. His brother happy. Beer. Burgers. Women. And yet Castiel sees beyond it, sees the broken parts of him reflected in himself most days.

“He’s found happiness.” He settles on saying as he sips the bitter liquid that is smooth now, that he’s grown to love, a better taste whenever Dean is near, whenever they share this.

Dean falters before his next sip, but takes it all the same as he replies with, “He deserves it.”

And because he’s never been good at lying or holding back he tells him, “So do you, Dean.”

A flash of something he can’t touch crosses Dean’s face, a dark shadow filled with rays of sun and light. Castiel imagines Lisa’s face, Ben’s laughter. He’s sure that’s what it is. As sure as the pain in his chest at the truth of it. But that’s a selfish pain, wrapped up for himself. In truth, he’d be the happiest, if only Dean was.

“I don’t think that’s in the cards for me anymore, Cas.” An honest reply, strikingly so. It makes Castiel’s heart quiver, makes him want to kiss him or hug, or do something even more stupid. Like, say the words. The words he’s long since discovered encompasses and means everything he’s ever felt for this man, but he doesn’t. He holds back. And instead, he reaches out with his beer and clinks it together. An awkward smile on his face.

“To saving the world.”

Dean chuckles. “Don’t ever change.” He says, and Castiel’s heart soars and drops, rolling together in an endless matter of time and space.

But he smiles with him.  
And he drinks his beer.

-

It’s in the burgers Dean cooks, happy and humming a tune in the kitchen. An apron draped over his waist, tied neatly in at the back. A pep in his step, an energy that screams of home and hot chocolate. Of laughter and the clinking of cups as snow blows them all inside. Card games and shouts of triumph at long held games of monopoly. Its hugs on cold days, and sad ones. Of a home that he’s always craved.

The song is a love song from a band’s cover he once saw. Sam showing him when he asked, confused at the humour of the situation. Sam laughing and Dean rolling his eyes, annoyance but clear love there of family. Dean says he doesn’t like it, that there’s too much, ‘hair’ but when he cooks, he hums their songs. When he’s in the shower, steam filling the room, he sings it. Loud and proud, and lovely.

“Eat up.” Dean says as he puts the burger in front of him, one for Sam, and another for himself. They sit at the table in the bunker, research spilled between them all. Beers in each of their hands. Castiel doesn’t need to eat or drink, but he likes burgers. Loves the ones Dean makes, and beer with him, with Sam. Eating together. Laughing. It feels like the family he’s never known. The cold distance between his brother and sisters, _his_ _fellow soldiers,_ no longer mattering at Dean’s gentle teasing of Sam’s inability to look away from his phone. Eileen should be here soon, there’s a burger kept warm on the grill for her. Castiel finds she fits right in too. Finds a smile on her lips that’s all knowing, that’s understanding. That’s family.

He eats the burger as Dean waits impatiently for his reaction. Almost like he’s waiting for someone to stumble and fall, and in a way he is. In a way he’s always falling when Dean looks at him like that. From Heaven, a million miles an hour, from Earth. From hell. From everything he’s ever known.

“Well?”

“I like this very much.” He says in his awkward, not quite human, not quite angel either way. It sometimes doesn’t feel like enough, but Dean knows him now, he knows him, so he smiles. A proud look on his features as Sam gives similar sentiments. As he eats too.

He doesn’t need any more than this, he doesn’t need to eat anyway, even if he wants to, but because he wants to see that grin of happiness, of pride, of all good things on the human, the first human that matters, on Dean Winchester, his best friend, he asks, “Can I have another?”

-

It’s in the tearing of his skin as he’s peeled bit by bit back to reveal an angel underneath it all. A straight stand up soldier who does not question orders, ever. It’s in the bones that are broken as his mind is turned back to the right way it’s supposed to be. To obey. To not question anything. To not feel. To forget feeling.

It’s in the way Dean smiles at him, relieved that he’s back, his heart jumping only to be brought back down as a phantom burning takes hold. A pain so unbearable, he’s pushing Dean away. He’s saying to him, “I serve Heaven, Dean, I don’t serve man, and I certainly don’t serve you.”

He feels Dean’s anguish. A mirror image of his own, his feelings, the tingling in his fingertips to touch, to hold. A sensation he’s never known before. A longing he never thought he could have. He walks away, and it hurts, it aches, an echo in his hollow bones.

Angels don’t have souls.

Except his burns, it’s brighter in _his_ smile.

‘I serve Heaven,’ he says it over and again until his gums bleed and his tongue twists with agony.

-

It’s in the care and love for a whole town better of burnt to a crisp, destroyed for the world to live. It’s in the way that he’s so sure of himself, of human life itself. The way Dean tells him with a fierce tight lipped hard scowl, a hardness in his eyes, “This is what matters.” The children on the swing, a mother’s coo to her baby. A father’s laughter as he hoists his child up on his arms. Kids riding their bikes. Laughter and love, it aches him. Troubles him.

“I’m not a hammer, Dean, I have doubts. I have questions.” So many questions. Why these people? Why him? Why them?

And, is God really there at all?

And what is this feeling within that occurs whenever the human, Dean Winchester, looks at him?

But Dean looks at him in awe, as though he’s given him some secret to the universe, when really it’s his own terrible secret. He thinks he can give Dean everything, all things, but this other thing, this starting of his heart that will not end, he’s not so sure.

Adam and Eve, man and woman.

There’s nothing else to be said.

They turn back to the town, and watch life pass them by, only this time, they’re side by side.

Eventually, he must go. He’s afraid of what else he’ll say next.

-

It’s in the furrowed brows of a man who no longer dreams of a better life, of kids in the yard and a wife on his arm. No mechanic shop that he runs after his father has passed. No little brother, a dashing lawyer with a wonderful fiancée. No smile as he drinks a beer with dinner, just the one, never more. A man who now dreams of blood and violence, of a world where there is no more or no less. Just is.

His breath a haze of hellish memories, of a pain that is secondary. Castiel stands over him, watching over him, a hand reached out to his shoulder. A covering over the part of his soul that he had touched, burned himself into, or where a part of his soul burned into him. That would be more accurate, wouldn’t it?

He whispers a soft prayer in enochian and Dean stills, brow unfurrow. Smile back as he dreams of more pleasant things. Of fishing. Of peace. It’s not enough somehow, it never is. Castiel’s heart still hurts. His chest aching. His self becoming more human the longer he’s around this man. Less of an angel. Less of a soldier.

He’s falling.

But he doesn’t seem to mind as much as he thought he would- or should.

“Goodnight, Dean.” He whispers, and if he catches the eye of Sam on his way out, that will stay between them, he’s sure.

-

It’s in the kid they share. A son. Jack Kline. He has his mother’s eyes, and her kindness to boot. He thinks nothing of himself, but always of others. His life means nothing. Castiel watches him and smiles, because he knows where that selflessness comes from. It’s in his blood, and it’s in how he was raised. Dean Winchester. Selfless to the end. Sam, kind. Him, trying even when he fails. A mother who never gave up on him, now he never gives up on anyone else.

“He’s a good, kid.” Dean whispers between a beer in the morning’s hours. His lips hovering over the bottle for a moment before he drinks. Castiel watches him, sitting next to him on cheap motel chairs, white and plastic. Outside the room, alone in the dawn of a new day.

“Yes, he is.” Castiel replies, then hesitates, because he’s not sure if he should say it. If he should say any of it. It’s been so long among these humans, that he’s learned and he’s grown. He understands when he doesn’t want to. He loves without meaning to. Without trying. He says things that mean everything, and he never regrets them, even when Dean looks at him like he’s about to, lost, unsure, and somehow happy, but not quite because he can’t be. He’s not allowed to, not yet. “I think he gets that from you, being selfless. Caring only for others.”

It sounds like a secret, like something he’s not supposed to say, like the other thing he’s not supposed to say, but this time he says it anyway.

“Loving people. Loving others.” He adds, tacks it to the last parts for good measure.

Dean pauses and halfway grimaces. “I’m not exactly a role model.” He says, a mirror of words he’s uttered only a few years before. Words that Castiel has memorized, and will never forget. As an angel, he can do that, as a being that exists, he chooses to.

“I think Jack proves that’s not true, don’t you?” He’s smiling, and Dean scoffs, but he’s smiling too.

They watch the sunset and it’s just enough. A tangent, a closeness to the real thing he wants, and can never have.

-

It’s in the way he shaves, hands warm on his own face as he shows him the right way to do it. The groove against skin, the tickle of breath as he gets closer. The furrow of his eyebrows as he pinches them in concentration. Himself following along. They stand side by side in a mirror and Castiel hears the whisper of, ‘personal space,’ that has disappeared with the wind, with the changing of a season.

His heart beats.

He hungers.

He’s human.

“You can’t stay here, Cas.” And it feels like the biggest betrayal. He feels cast away. Locked in some tiny room as though he never mattered. As though as much as Dean mattered, and will always matter, he himself is not going to, ever.

The shaving cream is cleared away, wiped in warm water and a half cocked smile from Dean as he says, “Done.”

-

It’s in his hugs, steady and sure, wrapped up in warmth. A tickle on his neck as a laughter bubbles up, almost like disbelief. He feels quite the same. His own comes up and they share that, this moment, once again together. No goodbyes anymore, except that there will be more, there will always be more.

Castiel enjoys each reunion like it will be his last, as though the face of this man, right here, right now, pulled away but still touching, it’s the last image he’ll see. The last fill of warmth in his heart. Beating too quickly, too much. It’s not about the touch, the feel of his body in comfort surrounding his own in a tight thing humans call a hug, instead it’s in that laughter. In this shared moment of relief, and something akin to happiness.

At seeing him again. At knowing that the last goodbye wasn’t forever. That maybe it never has to be.

“Dean.” He breathes out, and Dean is smiling at him. Almost as to say, ‘here I am,’ and, ‘I know, I look great.’

He pulls him in and Dean lets him. “Okay, alright, Cas.”

He hears his heart beat, and…

It’s enough.

-

It’s in the last goodbye that he shares with this man, the man who cares so deeply it rocked his very being. Still rocks it- him. It’s in the way Dean is left speechless in all his words. He doesn’t need him to say anything though, all he needs is this moment, burned into his memories, the most important, for all eternity.

“Goodbye, Dean.”

Somehow it’s enough. Somehow, it’s all he’s ever wanted- needed, for true happiness.

Just _being._

-

It’s in this vast nothingness, this love he has for this man, the first human that ever mattered. That will always matter. It’s here, with him, in this great big…

**_Empty._**

-

_I love you._

**Author's Note:**

> My first reaction watching the confession scene was to laugh, now I'm just... Sad.  
> 'in just being' really caught my attention. Loving Dean, for Castiel, it was in just being. Saying it was making it real, making it matter. Or maybe that's just me who thinks that.  
> Anyway, thank you for reading. xx


End file.
